MOUNT A / FLIGHT 2118 / PAYLOAD 16 UNITS, PLANE 9
WINDOW OPENS 0611:22 LOCAL. SUNRISE 0622:14.
T-00:00:33 DELUGE ON. 100,000 L committed.
T-00:00:03 IGNITION SEQUENCE. 33 chambers over 900 ms.
Every gram through a turbine before it reaches a flame.
T+00:00:00 T/W 1.48. CLAMPS RELEASED.
T+00:00:40 YAW PROGRAM. Azimuth 188 degrees.
CORRIDOR: standing overflight authorization, coastal states.
REMARK: holding it costs propellant.
T+00:01:06 MAX Q 34.1 kPa.
T+00:02:40 HOT STAGE. Upper stage ignition with the stack attached.
T+00:02:54 SEPARATION. Booster to 3 chambers.
RESERVE: 6.2% OF LOAD. NOT AVAILABLE TO ASCENT.
T+00:03:08 FLIP COMPLETE. 14 s.
T+00:03:19 BOOSTBACK. 13 chambers. 1,510 m/s of downrange motion reversed.
T+00:06:11 ENTRY BURN. Windward chines +400 K over the lee.
T+00:07:04 CATCH. Two load pins. Arms closed.
RESERVE REMAINING: 0.4%.
MOUNT A TURNAROUND
Next ship on the transporter. Bay mated 38 hours.
Flights from this mount, month to date: 9.
16 units x 250 kW = 4 MW per flight.
250 flights per gigawatt.
T+00:48:31 CIRCULARIZATION. 340 km. Inclination 96.8 degrees.
Node crossings 0600 and 1800 local, held there by the
oblateness of the planet underneath.
T+00:51:02 CLAMSHELL OPEN. Field of view reads 3 K.
T+00:51:40 ROLL 0.1 deg/s. Tension rods retracted.
16 units away at 0.04 m/s, which is enough.
Separation at +60 min: kilometres.
UNIT 9-04 / COMMISSIONING
ATTITUDE
Tip-off 2.0 deg/s, three axes.
Magnetorquers against the geomagnetic field. Wheels take the remainder.
Sun acquired +11 min, 90 degrees off plane, and it stays there.
POWER
Array deployed. No further articulation required for the life of the unit.
1,361 W/m2. No air. No weather. No night.
Ratio against identical cells under a sky: 4.0.
THERMAL
Radiator wings edge-on to the sun, faces to space and off-Earth.
Earth subtends a third of the sphere at this altitude and is warm.
Area 160 m2. 0.65 m2 per kilowatt of eventual draw.
In vacuum the only exit is light. Emissivity, sigma, area, T to the fourth.
Loop setpoint 350 K, on account of the fourth power.
Working fluid ammonia. Freezes at 195.4 K.
TCS-04 SURVIVAL HEATER . . . . . . . . 900 W
PROPULSION
Argon. 1.9 N. 340 km to 550 km over 21 days.
Low insertion is deliberate. A unit that fails checkout decays
inside a month.
LINKS
Four terminals. Two in plane, two across to the next.
Point-ahead 100 microradians, which is how far light falls behind while the two of them move.
ACQUIRED. ACQUIRED. ACQUIRED. ACQUIRED.
ENVIRONMENT
South Atlantic Anomaly, once per revolution.
Protons walk through the memory. The racks scrub and vote.
Eclipse season 19 days near solstice, 4 minutes at a time.
That is the entire reason for the batteries.
STANDING LOAD, DAYS 1 THROUGH 21
Compute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 W
TCS-04 SURVIVAL HEATER . . . . . . . . 900 W
Work performed: none.
SESSION 000001
GATEWAY 3. UPLINK 0612:44 UTC.
Cloud 0.1. Sun elevation at the site: minus 5.2 degrees.
whats the line of moving lights over the house
POWER STEP
T+0.00 s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 900 W
T+0.41 s . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240,000 W
TCS-04 SURVIVAL HEATER . . . . . . . . . 0 W
REMARK: the condition it was installed against has been replaced
by its opposite.
THERMAL RESPONSE
Junction. Cold plate. Loop. Panel.
Radiator outlet +4 K.
160 m2 of aluminium emitting at 10 micrometres,
a wavelength nothing on the ground is built to see.
DOWNLINK
1550 nm. A few joules.
Gateway selection by cloud cover. One of three clear.
Beam crosses the terminator.
DISPOSITION
Response correct.
The unit has no field in which to record that the response
describes the unit.